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筵

yán
noun #60,084

Meanings

  1. 1 banquet
  2. 2 feast
  3. 3 bamboo sitting mat

Examples

HSK 7-9
天下没有不散的筵席。
Tiānxià méiyǒu bú sàn de yánxí.
Even the grandest feast must finally come to an end.
HSK 7-9
主人摆下丰盛的喜筵款待宾客。
Zhǔrén bǎi xià fēngshèng de xǐ yán kuǎndài bīnkè.
The host laid out a lavish banquet to welcome the guests.

Tips

history
筵 originally meant the bamboo mat people sat on at floor level. Since guests dined seated on mats, it came to mean a banquet, as in 筵席 (feast) and the saying 天下没有不散的筵席 ('no feast lasts forever').

Components

radical
⺮ zhú
bamboo
The bamboo top, since the original 筵 was a woven bamboo sitting mat. It anchors the word in the bamboo-mat origin behind today’s ‘banquet’.
phonetic
延 yán
to extend; to prolong
Supplies the sound directly: 延 yán gives 筵 its exact reading yán, a clean phonetic match with no tone drift.

Stroke Order

筵 yán